Great sports weekend coming up

This is one of those weekends that sports fans look forward to all year. There are lots of marque events to choose from this weekend.

Dennis Miller

This is one of those weekends that sports fans look forward to all year. There are lots of marque events to choose from this weekend.

As we discussed earlier in the week we are down to four teams in the NCAA college basketball tournament. Can Wichita State continue their incredible run through the tournament? To do that they are going to have to beat the best team in the country right now and a team that now has added incentive to win after the terrible injury to Kevin Ware on Sunday. Wichita State built up a huge lead in their game last week before barely hangin on to win while Louisville rolled over a totally outgunned Duke team. It is hard for me to imagine that Wichita State can get past Louisville but stranger things have happened. I picked Louisville to win the tournament before it started and they have done nothing to convince me otherwise. I think they simply have too many weapons, too much talent and too much incentive not to go all the way to the national title. I think the best Wichita State can hope for is a competitive game.

The other Final Four matchup is a better matchup at least on paper. Syracuse and Michigan will square off in the second game on Saturday in what should be a very competitive matchup. It is my hope we don’t end up with an all Big East final but it could very well happen. Michigan has managed to pull off some big wins in this tournament and hopefully they have one or two more in their tank. I have said all tournament that Michigan has the two best guards in the country and both of them will need to be at the top of their game to beat Syracuse on Saturday. I said earlier in the week that I was predicting a Louisville and Michigan final and I’m going to stick with that prediction.

Another college basketball championship game that has a lot of regional interest takes place on Sunday as Drury University in Springfield, MO plays for the Division II championship. This game is of particular interest to Truman State as they will be joining the Great Lakes Valley Conference in a few months and Drury will be a yearly opponent for them. In fact, Drury will be at Pershing on February 1, 2014, will they be the defending national champions when that happens. I know nothing about the team Drury is playing on Sunday but I do know Drury has had an excellent basketball program for year so I for one hope Drury can win on Sunday. There seems to be a myth that the GLVC is a lesser conference than the MIAA but from what I have seen this year it’s simply a more balanced conference and much more competitive which will benefit Truman on many different levels for years to come.

After the first three games of the 2013 Major League Baseball season the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals find themselves with identical records. The Cardinals lost their first game to the Diamondbacks on Monday, dominated the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night before losing a marathon game on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. The Cardinals are in San Francisco for a weekend series with the defending champions Giants which begins today.

The Royals lost their first two games to the White Sox in Chicago before winning the finale yesterday afternoon. They are in Philadelphia to play the Phillies who appear to be stuck between the new look Phillies and the old veteran Phillies. Both the Royals and Cardinals have their home openers next Monday afternoon.

The Kirksville High School baseball team is off to an excellent start this year and appears to have an outstanding pitching staff along with timely hitting and good defense. They are on the road to play Mexico today.

The Truman State softball team is another team that is over to a good start and should contend for the MIAA title in their final year in the league.

The Truman State baseball team has played much better of late after getting off to a slow start and their pitching has gotten much better as the season has progressed.

NASCAR returns to action this weekend with the STP Fuel Booster 500. Is that like performance enhancing drugs for race cars or what exactly is Fuel Booster? If the top speed is 546 miles an hour then I’ll know I’m on to something. I’m waiting for next week when they have the NRA 500 which is sponsored by the National Rifle Association. How many NASCAR drivers will be shot before a winner and crowned, tune into Fox next Saturday night to find out.

We’ll be back on Monday with a review of all this weekend’s sports action and a look ahead to next week. We’ll also check in with NASCAR to see if anyone broke the sound carrier after using Fuel Booster. Thanks as always for supporting this and all the other blogs on this site.